I'm trying to figure out how to use this site. It seems like I pick some metrics I care about - maybe height-for-age for starters. So it shows me that deworming did better than school meals at increasing height-for-age. But I don't know what either of those interventions cost. So if I have $100 that I want to use to increase height-for-age, I'm still not sure which intervention gets me more improvement for my money.
I'm not sure how to pick which metrics to care about - is height-for-age more important than weight-for-age? Neonatal deaths? Labor force participation? I guess one answer is that nobody is all that sure about which metrics to care about, and this is an approach that gives donors more data on specific interventions if they have different priorities than, say, GiveWell's.
The "portfolio" part isn't up yet, but I assume it will eventually connect me to some organizations that do those various interventions. I'll be interested to see which organizations they recommend.
Their point (I assume) is that any kind of comparison between metrics invites some level of subjectivity, and they want to make the raw data as easy to work with as possible. I agree with this sentiment (insofar as there should be at least one organization doing that), but I agree that their presentation of the raw data leaves a lot out in terms of what you actually get for your money and which organizations are good at it.
I'm going to wait a few months for them to flesh out their site before I criticize them too heavily.
AidGrade is a new charity evaluator that looks to be comparable to GiveWell. Their primary difference is that they *only* focus on how charities compare along particular measured outcomes (such as school attendance, birthrate, chance of opening a business, malaria), without making any effort to compare between types of charities. (This includes interesting results like "Conditional Cash Transfers and Deworming are better at improving attendance rates than scholarships")
GiveWell also does this, but designs their site to direct people towards their top charities. This is better for people with don't have the time to do the (fairly complex) work of comparing charities across domains, but AidGrade aims to be better for people that just want the raw data and the ability to form their own conclusions.
I haven't looked it enough to compare the quality of the two organizations' work, but I'm glad we finally have another organization, to encourage some competition and dialog about different approaches.
This is a fun page to play around with to get a feel for what they do:
http://www.aidgrade.org/compare-programs-by-outcome
And this is a blog post outlining their differences with GiveWell:
http://www.aidgrade.org/uncategorized/some-friendly-concerns-with-givewell